


trade my tomorrows for just one yesterday

by PugsOfHouseTargaryen



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Feels, F/F, Grief/Mourning, References to Depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2020-03-17 20:30:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18972406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PugsOfHouseTargaryen/pseuds/PugsOfHouseTargaryen
Summary: I bumped into you by happenstanceYou probably wouldn't even know who I amBut if I whispered your nameI bet there'd still be a sparkOR"Why are you here?" Lena asked.A creaking of leather gloves, as if the woman itched to reach for the rifle strapped across her back and shoot down the question she didn't have the answer to.A harsh exhale."...I don't know."





	trade my tomorrows for just one yesterday

**Author's Note:**

> Short Background!!!
> 
> This story occurs straight after the "Alive" cinematic trailer, so I suggest watching that before reading this! Diverting from canon a little bit with the implication that Lena and Amélie were close in Overwatch, before Widowmaker's creation
> 
> And that's all you need to know! Well, aside from the fact that this fic is purely self-indulgent but whatever ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

****

Lena Oxton knew herself to be nothing less than resilient.

She also knew that no one she met in her line of work would disagree.

One didn’t just come back from being labeled  _ ‘missing in action’ _ due to a prototype plane going haywire and act like nothing had happened afterwards. One wouldn't expect that person—one that couldn’t be considered anything other than a  _ victim— _ to bounce back and pretend that they were completely fine.

And Lena didn’t do that—she had no need to pretend to be fine because she  _ was  _ fine.

She distinctly remembered the lingering stares as she walked down Overwatch’s halls, watching for any sign of trauma on her person—well, aside from the glaringly obvious. She believed the glowing circle of blue on her chest was proof enough of her going through what she did.

And yet, despite all of those expectations, Lena all but jumped on the chance to be part of something  _ greater, _ to stand alongside the heroes she had once looked up to and fight the good fight.

Those expectations for her to fail began to slowly fade away as she showed more positivity and strength the longer she fought, lending it to those who had lost sight of it during the Omnic War. She could never forget Genji’s surprise upon sparring with her, saying that he had never encountered an opponent so hard to overcome.

With all that said and done, it was almost funny for Lena to imagine everyone’s worry upon receiving her distress call.

“Requesting immediate extraction,” she croaked into her earpiece, forcing herself to ignore the sound of her own voice fading, to ignore the way her hand  _ glitched _ before her own eyes as her body flickered in and out of existence. 

The experience was never a pleasant one.

She could hear the familiar panicked hustle in her ear, multiple voices fighting for dominance before she heard the one she needed the most.

"Lena!" Winston exclaimed, extreme concern evident in his gruff voice. She couldn't help but smile at that. "What happened? Is everything alright?"

If she had to think of one good thing that came with losing herself in the slipstream, Lena could say she had gained a good friend in the gorilla, who had no less than saved her life when everyone had declared her dead.

And maybe that was why it was so easy for her to open up at that moment, why the tears she wasn't even aware of were suddenly spilling from her eyes. 

The smile that tugged on the corners of her lips was one of both relief and despair, unsure whether the sight of a blue-skinned woman on the roofs of King's Row healed the scars on her heart or ripped them wide open.

"I saw her, Winston," Lena cried, and she couldn't convince herself that it was due to the pain stabbing her side, simply because she was all too familiar with the tightening around her chest. Lena had felt it too much in the past months to not know what heartbreak felt like. 

A weak, broken sob managed to escape her lips. 

"She's  _ alive,  _ luv."

And her friend didn't seem to have a reply to that, because they both knew that there was only one person that had caused Lena to sound so weak before, one person that had wormed past the smiling mask Lena put on everyday and had seen the vulnerable girl she buried so deeply.

_ "Foolish girl,"  _ the woman had said—so familiar, and at the same time, so different.

So all Winston said was: "Help is on the way."

\-------------------------------

Lena never needed to go to the medical wing.

She wasn't sure if that was something she should be grateful for, considering how she never had the chance to find out for herself. Given her abilities, reaching for the 'undo' button of her life was just as natural as breathing.

However, despite her mistakes having been undone, she was still able to feel whatever damage she went through before rewinding time, still feel the ghostly pains and sensations despite knowing that they were no longer there.

And as Winston hovered over her as she lay on a metal table in his lab, tinkering with the gadget on her chest that kept her in the here and now, Lena considered asking him to alter her abilities. To give her the choice to forget what had happened before she pressed rewind.

It would've been much easier now, if Lena could forget seeing  _ her _ face when the visor lifted from suddenly golden irises.

And even with cold skin and piercing eyes, warmth was what Lena had always associated with  _ her. _

Even with the emotionless set of lips, Lena had memorized the upward quirk of  _ her _ smile.

Even with words tainted with annoyance and spite, Lena still remembered how sweet and kind  _ her _ voice had been.

So, even if she had the ability to temporarily forget, Lena also knew that she would _still_ recognize _her_.

_ "Adieu, chérie,"  _ the woman on the rooftop had said.

Lena had always loved it when Amélie called her that.

\----------------

Along with the fact that she had never needed to go to the medical wing, Lena had never needed to see Mercy on a professional basis.

Sure, they met each other on the battlefield every once in a while, when the older woman grew anxious with Lena's tendencies to jump head first into dangerous situations—which the newer agent would just give a helpless shrug at, as if to say,  _ 'Well, what else do you expect me to do?' _

Right before running straight into said dangerous situation.

Truthfully, Lena would only let loose a dramatic battle cry to see the older woman laugh and shake her head at her antics.

No, Angela was less of a workmate for Lena, and more of a close friend. A confidante, if she so dared to push it.

If she wasn't with Winston, most of the other agents would see Lena in the lounge, munching on a bag of chips as she flicked through whatever was on the television. It was almost automatic for Angela to show up soon after, mindlessly handing Lena a glass of water as she passed by the couch, softly reminding her to stop with the junk food and to start eating healthier.

Most would laugh when Lena mumbled under her breath, then they would laugh even harder when Angela passed by once more to smack the younger woman at the back of the head when she tried to sneak another chip into her mouth.

Lena would often try to play it off, saying that she didn't need anyone taking care of her. She would even teasingly call Angela 'mama bird.'

The older woman would only roll her eyes and take it in stride, knowing for a fact that the jab wasn't meant to hurt.

Angela was also the first person Lena had run to upon discovering Amélie's disappearance. The tears shed by Lena at that moment wasn't mentioned to anyone, not even between themselves.

So it was a bit odd when Lena heard someone knock at her door, just three timid taps echoing within the four walls of her quarters on base. Somehow, she already knew who it was on the other side.

The smile Lena received once her friend walked in wasn't one she was used to. 

Angela's smiles were bright, happiness evident in the edges, if a little timid.

No, this smile was small, polite, and sympathetic. 

Angela, her friend, her confidante, wasn't with her at that moment. 

Mercy, her workmate, the professional, the agent that dealt with gore and pain everyday, was.

"How are you feeling?" Mercy asked.

Lena watched as the other woman chose to stand at the foot of her bed, instead of sitting on it like she normally would. She sighed. "I've been better."

It went without saying that Lena hadn't meant that in a physical sense. 

Mercy gave her a sympathetic yet strained smile. 

Lena just wanted her friend.

"I've been given permission to send you home for a week, given the circumstances you've dealt with," Mercy continued, her mask cracking for a split second as she winced. Lena didn't read too much into her words. "You deserve a break, Lena."

"Great," Lena announced, cracking a strained grin and clapping her hands in a gesture that looked happier than she felt. "Was that all you needed?"

And for a moment, that mask finally fell from Mercy's face, her blue eyes shining with hurt at being so quickly dismissed. Suddenly, it was Angela in front of her now.

Lena distantly wondered how she must look at that moment—the normally carefree and chipper woman she was just earlier that day, suddenly replaced by the woman she was when their superiors decided it wasn't worth looking for Amélie any longer.

She turned away from her friend, unable to keep looking at the searching gaze in blue eyes.

And just when Lena thought the older woman would turn on her heel and leave her room, a quiet voice—one she associated with Angela, not Mercy—broke the silence.

"Did you really see her?"

Suddenly, Lena saw a memory of herself in her mind's eye, wrapped in the arms of the very woman standing at the foot of her bed, cursing and crying and wailing as Angela held her tighter, unable to do much else but be there for her grieving friend.

And when Lena closed her eyes, she saw golden ones staring right back.

"Yes."

Silence.

And then there was a distinct shuffling, a sound that could only be made by footsteps muffled against the carpet beneath them, before she felt a warm hand rest on her shoulder.

When she opened her eyes once again, she was met with furrowed eyebrows drawn together in clear concern, a slight frown that showed clear remorse.

"We can't be sure that it's still  _ her, _ Lena."

And some part of her knew that she should've been angry upon hearing those words. Yes, she knew it was on everyone's minds once the news of her encounter with the woman that had been proclaimed missing—it had only gotten worse when they realized that it was definitely Talon's doing.

She should've been angry when someone finally mentioned what was glaringly obvious.

She should've been angry when someone shot down the thing Lena had only dreamt of.

She should've been angry when it was  _ Angela _ of all people.

And yet, all Lena said was:

"I know."

With one last squeeze, her friend gave a similarly strained smile and saw her way to the door, understanding the other woman's need to be alone.

The look of sympathy Angela sent her way went unnoticed by Lena, seeing how she was already throwing her necessities into a duffle.

No one dared to stop Lena on her way out of the base, her duffle bag carelessly slung over her shoulder as she practically burst through the exit.

No one dared mentioning the tears that had escaped her eyes without her notice either.

\-----------------------

King's Row was always busy.

_ Too _ busy, if the woman atop one of the many rooftops overlooking the neighborhood had anything to say about it.

Not that it bothered her too much.

Given the time, there shouldn't have been much civilians to speak of, but vague memories from a past life told the woman that weekends usually meant people would be out of their homes and into the night life, gathering with what they called  _ 'friends' _ and diving into several pints of alcohol.

_ Imbéciles, _ the woman thought to herself.

Anyone else would have been grateful for the thick fog filling the night sky, to act as a cover when the rooftops themselves provided little to none. 

But not her.

She was too good at her job to need such trivial things.

With a slow roll of her shoulders, the woman gave a running start, the soles of her feet hitting the roof beneath her in perfect balance despite the ridiculously precarious heels her superiors made her wear.

She was nearly at the edge when she shot her arm out automatically—the action so second nature to her that she had no need to look where she was aiming—and a hook attached itself to a higher windowsill, sending her gliding over the rooftops beneath her.

The height might have thrilled her before, maybe even scared her enough for her heart to race just a little quicker in her chest.

Yet now, her heart continued its slow and steady rhythm, not once faltering as she soared above the general population.

She wondered what it must have been like being one of them, being a regular passerby walking the streets like she had not one care in the world. What must it be like, living an uncomplicated life, with ordinary problems, with no one whispering in her ear?

She would've wondered more deeply on those things in another life, if she had the care to do so.

And in this life, the woman lacked the ability to care about anything.

_ "We assume that your mission to assassinate Mondatta was successful?"  _ the woman remembered her superior saying through the intercom of Talon's briefing room earlier that night. They had never shown her their face. That would make them too easy of a target for her.

_ "Of course,"  _ she had replied, with a barely visible roll of her golden eyes. They shouldn't have expected anything but perfection from her. It had been, admittedly, one of her finest kills.

_ "And what of the one they call Tracer?" _

She was not supposed to feel. 

She was incapable of feeling emotion.

And yet, with that name ringing in her ear, her hackles had risen all the same.

_ "Is she going to be a problem?" _ they had asked.

_ "Non,"  _ she had said.

_ "You will stay as far as possible from her." _

_ "Oui,"  _ she had affirmed.

_ "She is not important to you, Widowmaker." _

Silence.

_ "I know,"  _ Widowmaker had replied.

And yet, not an hour later from that conversation, Widowmaker found herself releasing her grappling hook and landing evenly on a nondescript balcony, right outside a living room that shouldn't have been so familiar to her.

It couldn't have been.

Except that picture hanging on the distant wall of the living room had caught her attention—and for the life of her, she couldn't bring herself to look away.

It was a picture of two people—the annoyance known as Tracer, whom she had supposedly only met that very night and an eerily familiar woman, smiling like she actually enjoyed that annoyance's company.

She was incapable of emotion.

And yet, Widowmaker felt an odd pang in her chest upon seeing herself, albeit without the blue skin and golden eyes,  _ smiling _ for the first time.

\------------------

A telltale click of her bedroom door sliding open. 

Nearly imperceptible, but Lena heard it perfectly.

If there was one downside in inadvertently taking up the mantle of Overwatch's mascot, it was the paranoia the position had instilled within her.

Despite her cheerful personality, Lena had always kept her guard up with people and places she wasn't familiar with. It was the only thing she could see herself doing, since her face and name and what she did for a living weren't exactly being kept secret.

And yet, even with the obvious sign of someone trying to break into her home, Lena—the _renowned_ _hero_ Tracer—didn't so much as flinch from where she was lying on her bed.

Despite being known for her boundless energy, Lena simply did not have it in herself to move.

Clutching at the scarf tangled in her fingers, she distantly wondered what her fellow heroes would think if they saw her now.

With a sigh, Lena closed her eyes. "Finally decided to finish the job, luv?"

Because who else could it have been? Lena would have recognized that perfume anywhere.

And maybe she should've been worried about the fact that the woman was in her home in the first place, presumably with the task of completing her task—but no matter how hard she tried not to, with that scent lingering in the air, Lena couldn't help but pretend it was Amélie with her now.

Silence. Then a slow intake of breath.

"It was never my mission to hurt you,  _ chérie," _

At that, Lena finally opened her eyes.

And there she was, standing just a foot away, latex-clad knees just barely brushing the edge of her bed.

Despite the glaring differences, Lena still found her so damningly  _ beautiful. _

Slowly, as if not to scare the woman away, Lena pushed herself up by the elbows, allowing herself to pause and actually  _ look _ at the woman before her.

In the dark of the night, Lena could almost convince herself that the stranger in front of her was still the woman she remembered.

"Then why are you here?" she asked.

A creaking of leather gloves, as if the woman itched to reach for the rifle strapped across her back and shoot down the question she didn't have the answer to.

A harsh exhale. 

"...I don't know."

And golden eyes were suddenly looking down at the scarf wrapped in her fingers, watching with an intensity that belied the emotionless set of her mouth. A flicker of  _ something _ in those golden eyes spurred Lena to reach out when the strange woman turned to leave.

Two sets of eyes stared at the point where their skin met, one radiating warmth and another too chilly to be considered  _ entirely _ human, with the very scarf the woman seemed to recognize held between them.

Amélie had given that scarf to Lena—and that was the last thing she ever did, because she had gone missing a few hours later.

And Lena knew that she was holding onto a hope she wasn't even sure had any merit, but it was almost natural—almost immediate, almost  _ desperate _ —for her to release the word bursting from the seam of her lips.

"Stay," Lena whispered.

Long hair swished to the side as a regal chin pointed away. Somehow, a part of Lena knew that golden eyes had settled on the photograph hanging on the wall of her living room, barely visible from her bedroom door.

Chilly fingers twitched once more.

"I am not  _ her, chérie." _

And she almost sounded  _ sympathetic, _ for God's sake, and Lena wanted to burst into tears for the hundredth time that night. She could feel that familiar sting at the back of her eyes—and it would be  _ so easy _ to let the woman go, to pretend that this was all just a figment of her imagination.

It would be easier to forget.

But all Lena did was squeeze the hand that had killed that very same night, and yet held hers so gently now.

"I know," she replied.

And that hand twitched once more, pulling away from her grasp as the woman— _ Amélie, Amélie, Amélie— _ reached upwards. 

Fingers that had once caressed her hair so tenderly were now wrapping around the hilt of a rifle, and Lena had to wonder if she had said the wrong thing, or revealed too much with the words she hadn't said.

But long legs that had once danced so gracefully were now bending ever so slightly at the knees as the woman reached over to place her rifle against the bed frame.

A spine that had once been so fluid was now stiff with tension as the woman seated herself in the small space between Lena and the edge of her bed.

Skin that used to feel so warm now sent goosebumps running down Lena's side as their bodies brushed.

The familiarity of Amélie's embrace was shadowed by uncertainty with the way the woman draped her arm around Lena's waist, more muscle memory than an actual means for comfort.

Lena wasn't sure if she had made the right decision in asking the other woman to stay, knowing that it had been made clear that she wasn't the woman Lena was looking for.

But for the life of her, Lena was fine with pretending that nothing had changed, that everything was just as it should be.

"I'm sorry," Lena whispered anyways. For what, she wasn't sure herself.

Maybe she was apologizing for the cramped space.

Maybe she was apologizing for asking the woman to stay.

Maybe she was apologizing to the Amélie she had known, for seeking comfort in a woman that had the same sharp jawline and the same high cheekbones; for seeking comfort from a person that held the face of the woman she once loved, but was clearly someone else.

Maybe she was apologizing for her need to turn a blind eye, to keep pretending for just a little longer.

And the only response Lena received was a subtle tightening of the arm around her waist, a set of suddenly pursed lips, and a long and shaky exhale.

Maybe it wasn't Amélie holding her now.

But maybe—just  _ maybe— _ the stranger across her wanted to keep pretending as well.

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first WidowTracer fic, so let me know what you think and if you want me to continue this! 
> 
> special thanks to my beta, karla, for entering a whole new fandom just to help me in writing this hahaha oops
> 
> you can follow me at https://pugsofhousetargaryen.tumblr.com/ for widowtracer and my other well-loved ships!
> 
> hope you all liked it!


End file.
